From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
WYOMING, Minn. — A Minnesota police department threatened to force drunken drivers to watch a Super Bowl ad featuring Justin Bieber.
The police department in the city of Wyoming tweeted during the Super Bowl that anyone caught driving drunk Sunday night would be forced to watch the pop star the entire way to jail. Continue reading “Minnesota cops threaten to force drunk drivers to watch Justin Bieber Super Bowl ad”
CHESTERFIELD, Mo. – A Missouri middle school suspended a student who was pummeled on his school bus for wearing a Make America Great Again hat.
A video of the incident published by KMOV shows several students confronting 12-year-old Parkway School District student Gavin Cortina on a bus last Wednesday over of his red Make America Great Again hat. Continue reading “Middle schooler beaten over wearing Trump hat — then suspended!”
Welcome to ‘nightmare 2017’ where police in Arizona can arrest and fine passengers $750.00 for not showing their photo ID’s.
Arizona’s House Bill 2305 would make it a crime for passengers to decline to provide a photo ID to police. Passengers who fail to provide an ID could be sentenced to four months in jail and a $750.00 fine. Continue reading “Passengers to be arrested for not showing their ID’s”
VIZIO, Inc., one of the world’s largest manufacturers and sellers of internet-connected “smart” televisions, has agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission and the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General that it installed software on its TVs to collect viewing data on 11 million consumer TVs without consumers’ knowledge or consent. Continue reading “VIZIO to Pay $2.2 Million to FTC, State of New Jersey to Settle Charges It Collected Viewing Histories on 11 Million Smart Televisions without Users’ Consent”
Some of the greatest illusions are sitting out in the open. They are bypassed for two reasons. People refuse to believe they are illusions, despite the abundant evidence; and the professionals dedicated to upholding the illusions continue their work as if nothing at all has been exposed.
Medical journalists in the mainstream rely completely on studies published in prestigious journals. Continue reading “Mainstream medical journalism is an illusion”
My Statesman – by Eva Ruth Moravec
Eighteen officer-involved shootings since September 2015 have not been properly reported to the state attorney general, violating a groundbreaking new Texas law aimed at enhancing transparency in the often-high-profile incidents.
At least 14 Texas law enforcement agencies failed to report 11 instances of an officer shooting a civilian, including 10 deaths, according to an analysis of reports filed through Tuesday. In some of those cases, more than one agency was involved in the incident. Continue reading “State database of officer-involved shootings is missing 18 cases”
The company developing the Dakota Access Pipeline has filed a motion to seal or redact certain “sensitive information” from the public, saying they believe terrorists could use it to cause damage to the pipeline.
In a motion filed late on Wednesday, Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, asked Judge James Boasberg of the US District Court for the District of Columbia to enter a protective order that would keep 11 documents containing confidential information from the public, Buzzfeed reports. Continue reading “Dakota Access LLC requests judge seal information from public”
Daily Caller – by Ethan Barton
Social Security benefits were withheld from an estimated 114,000 individuals of at least 50 years in age as of 2015 in order to repay their student loan debts, a congressional watchdog reported Tuesday.
“An increasing number of older Americans have defaulted on their federal student loan debt,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) wrote in a blog post. “To recover this debt, the federal government can withhold a portion of Social Security payments — a process known as offsetting.” Continue reading “Social Security Withheld From 114,000 Seniors Because Of Student Loans”
Off the Grid News – by Daniel Jennings
HEFLIN, Ala. — A couple is charging that social workers took their newborn the day after he was born because of their alternative lifestyle and religious beliefs.
“They said our view was dangerous,” Christian Holm said of social workers for the Cleburne County, Ala., Department of Human Resources (DHR). “We were just trying to follow the Bible as close as we could and speak for Jesus.” Continue reading “Newborn seized after “off-grid” parents refuse social security number”
Lew Rockwell – by David Hathaway
No, it’s not an Obama-phone. What’s the catch? Well, if you keep your monthly usage to 200 minutes of phone calls, 500 text messages, and 500 MB of data, there is no catch. Never get a monthly bill. No Spanish-American war tax. It really is free. Zero dollars and zero cents. And, you get to use the latest fancy-pants smartphones. Although I am not being paid to write this and Lew is not being paid to run it, I just have to point out to other liberty lovers another great outcome coming out of the somewhat free market.
Continue reading “Get Free Cell Phone Service”
San Francisco police will suspend the department’s much-criticized collaboration with FBI counterterrorism efforts, police said Wednesday, in an announcement that was celebrated by civil liberties and immigration advocates who have long called for stricter oversight of local participation in federal enforcement.
The announcement comes as San Francisco moves to disengage from the federal government under the Trump administration, especially in regard to the president’s directives on immigration and the treatment of Muslims. Continue reading “SFPD to suspend collaboration with FBI counterterrorism program”
President Trump’s executive order on travel may be generating big protests, but an IRS missive on travel and passports may not go down too well either. More than a year ago, in H.R.22, Congress gave the IRS a new weapon to collect taxes. Tax code Section 7345 is labeled, “Revocation or Denial of Passport in Case of Certain Tax Delinquencies.” The law isn’t limited to criminal tax cases, or even cases where the IRS thinks you are trying to flee. The idea of the law is to use travel as a way to enforce tax collections. It was proposed and rejected in 2012. But by late 2015, Congress passed it and President Obama signed it. Continue reading “Another Travel Ban: IRS Moves To Revoke Passports For Unpaid Taxes”
Police State America’s fixation on over-criminalization costs taxpayers $152 billion every year!
According to a report by the Prison Policy Initiative nearly $81 billion goes to running the correctional system and all of the costs that families have to pay to support their incarcerated loved ones. Continue reading “America’s fixation on over-criminalization costs us $152 billion every year”
Institute for Justice – by Dan Alban
The abusive practice of civil forfeiture has repeatedly been condemned all across the political spectrum, with 175 editorials from 85 separate news outlets calling for civil forfeiture to be reformed or eliminated since July 2014. Despite this widespread consensus on the need for forfeiture reform, a specious new article on the FBI websitedefends civil and criminal forfeiture, claiming that forfeiture is “a law enforcement tool [that] allows us to accomplish a number of goals—from disrupting and dismantling criminal and terrorist organizations and punishing criminals to compensating victims and protecting communities.” Continue reading “IJ to FBI: Civil Forfeiture Violates Property Rights; Not a Proper Tool for Law Enforcement”
Global Research – by Larry Chin
Donald Trump’s first act as president was a visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where he addressed gathering of CIA employees. His journey directly in “the swamp” took place almost immediately after his inauguration, and was clearly an urgent first priority.
Serenading Langley
The CIA is a headquarters of the Deep State and the Shadow Government. It is the nexus of criminality, and of the Bushes and Clintons, and the world-managing elite. The CIA enjoys a virtually unlimited black budget and virtually unlimited power that is beyond the reach of law, and beyond the control of the White House. Continue reading “The CIA’s “Deep State”, Donald Trump and His “War on Terrorism””
The Hill – by E. Gregory Wallace
Should a person forfeit certain constitutional rights just because he or she chooses to carry a firearm lawfully in public? That’s exactly what a federal appellate judge declared this week in a case involving police stop-and-frisk.
The case is United States v. Robinson and it was heard by all 16 judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Continue reading “Fourth Circuit shreds civil liberties for public gun carry”
Privacy News Online – by Rick Falkvinge
Several European countries will start requiring photo ID from passengers to ride trains, similar to airport identity checks. The requirement concerns the high-speed Thalys and Eurostar services in Europe, with the vague goal of “tightening security and tracking criminals”. Activists said this would happen when useless security theater appeared in airports – it will just spread, but people dismissed the idea at the time as preposterous, probably because it still is. Continue reading “Told you so: Airport-style identity checks coming to train travel”
Dinner is served in cellblock 18, and one can’t help but approach it with trepidation.
It’s finger food — not even sporks allowed — sitting unadorned on a piece of brown paper. The stuff of legend and lawsuits.
‘I would equate it to the zucchini bread my mom used to make, except for the surprise pineapple pieces,’ said Delaware corrections commissioner Robert Coupe. Continue reading “‘It’s baked slop’: Disgusting ‘alternative’ prison loafs fed to inmates when they misbehave”